Download or read book The Myth of the Superhero written by Marco Arnaudo and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-05 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Translated for the first time into English, The Myth of the Superhero looks beyond the cape, the mask, and the superpowers, presenting a serious study of the genre and its place in a broader cultural context.
Download or read book The Myth of the American Superhero written by John Shelton Lawrence and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the nation seems to yearn for redemption from the evils that threaten its tranquility, the authors maintain that Joseph Campbell's monomythic hero is alive and well, but significantly displaced, in American popular culture.
Download or read book The Mythology of the Superhero written by Andrew R. Bahlmann and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-04-27 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superheroes have been an integral part of popular society for decades and have given rise to a collective mythology familiar in popular culture worldwide. Though scholars and fans have recognized and commented on this mythology, its structure has gone largely unexplored. This book provides a model and lexicon for identifying the superhero mythos. The author examines the myth in several narratives--including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Green Arrow and Beowulf--and discusses such diverse characters as Batman, Wolverine, Invincible and John Constantine.
Download or read book Super Heroes written by Richard Reynolds and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 1994 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of one of popular culture's superstars whose enchanting mystique pervades the modern world
Download or read book Marvelous Myths written by Russell W Dalton and published by Chalice Press. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes someone a hero? In the early 1960's, the image of a superhero was someone with a square jaw, a muscular build, and a quick smile whose biggest personal problem was trying to keep their girlfriends from guessing their secret identities. Then writer Stan Lee and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko created a group of superheroes who revolutionized comics. These heroes, including The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-man, The X-men, Iron Man, Captain America and others, were not perfect heroes living in a perfect world, but fallible people with physical ailments and personal problems like our own. While the authors and artists who created them did not intend to write explicitly religious stories, their tales of imperfect heroes who try to do the right thing despite the many challenges they face, provide us with the opportunity to reflect on our own faith journeys as we strive to live heroic lives in the real world. Each chapter reflects on the heroes' most famous adventures and discusses the ways in which we are called to overcome many of the same obstacles they face as we strive to carry out the ministries to which God calls us. Each chapter ends with questions for reflection or group study.
Download or read book On the Origin of Superheroes written by Chris Gavaler and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2015-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most readers think that superheroes began with Superman’s appearance in Action Comics No. 1, but that Kryptonian rocket didn’t just drop out of the sky. By the time Superman’s creators were born, the superhero’s most defining elements—secret identities, aliases, disguises, signature symbols, traumatic origin stories, extraordinary powers, self-sacrificing altruism—were already well-rehearsed standards. Superheroes have a sprawling, action-packed history that predates the Man of Steel by decades and even centuries. On the Origin of Superheroes is a quirky, personal tour of the mythology, literature, philosophy, history, and grand swirl of ideas that have permeated western culture in the centuries leading up to the first appearance of superheroes (as we know them today) in 1938. From the creation of the universe, through mythological heroes and gods, to folklore, ancient philosophy, revolutionary manifestos, discarded scientific theories, and gothic monsters, the sweep and scale of the superhero’s origin story is truly epic. We will travel from Jane Austen’s Bath to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars to Owen Wister’s Wyoming, with some surprising stops along the way. We’ll meet mad scientists, Napoleonic dictators, costumed murderers, diabolical madmen, blackmailers, pirates, Wild West outlaws, eugenicists, the KKK, Victorian do-gooders, detectives, aliens, vampires, and pulp vigilantes (to name just a few). Chris Gavaler is your tour guide through this fascinating, sometimes dark, often funny, but always surprising prehistory of the most popular figure in pop culture today. In a way, superheroes have always been with us: they are a fossil record of our greatest aspirations and our worst fears and failings.
Download or read book Superman on the Couch written by Danny Fingeroth and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are so many of the superhero myths tied up with loss, often violent, of parents or parental figures? What is the significance of the dual identity? What makes some superhuman figures "good" and others "evil"? Why are so many of the prime superheroes white and male? How has the superhero evolved over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries? And how might the myths be changing? Why is it that the key superhero archetypes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men - touch primal needs and experiences in everyone? Why has the superhero moved beyond the pages of comics into other media? All these topics, and more, are covered in this lively and original exploration of the reasons why the superhero - in comic books, films, and TV - is such a potent myth for our times and culture.>
Download or read book Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe written by Michael D. Nichols and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Breaking box office records, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved an unparalleled level of success with fans across the world, raising the films to a higher level of narrative: myth. This is the first book to analyze the Marvel output as modern myth, comparing it to epics, symbols, rituals, and stories from world religious traditions. This book places the exploits of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the other stars of the Marvel films alongside the legends of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Arjuna, the Buddha, and many others. It examines their origin stories and rites of passage, the monsters, shadow-selves, and familial conflicts they contend with, and the symbols of death and the battle against it that stalk them at every turn. The films deal with timeless human dilemmas and questions, evoking an enduring sense of adventure and wonder common across world mythic traditions.
Download or read book Heroes Masked and Mythic written by Christopher Wood and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epic battles, hideous monsters and a host of petty gods--the world of Classical mythology continues to fascinate and inspire. Heroes like Herakles, Achilles and Perseus have influenced Western art and literature for centuries, and today are reinvented in the modern superhero. What does Iron Man have to do with the Homeric hero Odysseus? How does the African warrior Memnon compare with Marvel's Black Panther? Do DC's Wonder Woman and Xena the Warrior Princess reflect the tradition of Amazon women such as Penthesileia? How does the modern superhero's journey echo that of the epic warrior? With fresh insight into ancient Greek texts and historical art, this book examines modern superhero archetypes and iconography in comics and film as the crystallization of the hero's journey in the modern imagination.
Download or read book Mutants and Mystics written by Jeffrey J. Kripal and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Account of how comic book heroes have helped their creators and fans alike explore and express a wealth of paranormal experiences ignored by mainstream science. Delving deeply into the work of major figures in the field - from Jack Kirby's cosmic superhero sagas and Philip K. Dick's futuristic head-trips to Alan Moore's sex magic and Whitley Strieber's communion with visitors - Kripal shows how creators turned to science fiction to convey the reality of the inexplicable and the paranormal they experienced in their lives. Expanded consciousness found its language in the metaphors of sci-fi - incredible powers, unprecedented mutations, time-loops and vast intergalactic intelligences - and the deeper influences of mythology and religion that these in turn drew from ; the wildly creative work that followed caught the imaginations of millions. Moving deftly from Cold War science and Fredric Wertham's anticomics crusade to gnostic revelation and alien abduction, Kripal spins out a hidden history of American culture, rich with mythical themes and shot through with an awareness that there are other realities far beyond our everyday understanding."--Jacket.
Download or read book Capitalist Superheroes written by Dan Hassler-Forest and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the same way that Stallone and Schwarzenegger played film heroes who came to embody the values of Ronald Reagans aggressive conservative agenda in the 1980s, the 21st-century film narratives of Batman, Spider-Man and Superman reflect the policies of the Bush Doctrine after 9/11. This book offers a groundbreaking study of the relationship that exists between post-9/11 American politics and the contemporary superhero movie phenomenon. No other Hollywood subgenre was as consistently popular during the George W. Bush presidency, as films such as Spider-Man, Superman Returns, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight embodied the key contradictions that inform the cultural and political life of the post-9/11 years. By combining in-depth analyses of numerous major superhero films from this era with astute readings of contemporary critical theory, this book offers accessible and academically potent insight into the complex interplay between politics, ideology, and entertainment in the 21st century. ,
Download or read book Superheroes and Gods written by Don LoCicero and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2007-10-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work provides a unique study of superheroes and gods in literature, popular culture, and ancient myth. The author selects a number of mythological figures (e.g., Babylonia's Gilgamesh and Enkidu), ancient gods (e.g., Greece's Eros and Tartarus), and modern superheroes (e.g., the United States' Superman and Captain Marvel) and identifies the often striking similarities between each unique category of characters. The author contends that the vast majority of mythological superheroes follow the same archetypal character patterns, regardless of each hero's unique time period or culture. Each of the first nine chapters examines the heroes and gods of a particular region or country, while the final chapter examines modern descendants of the hero prototype like Batman and Spiderman and several infamous anti-heroes (for example, Dracula and The Hulk). Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Download or read book Our Superheroes Ourselves written by Robin S. Rosenberg PhD and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-21 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superhero fans are everywhere, from the teeming halls of Comic Con to suburban movie theaters, from young children captivated by their first comic books to the die-hard collectors of vintage memorabilia. Why are so many people fascinated by superheroes? In this thoughtful, engaging, and at times eye-opening volume, Robin Rosenberg--a writer and well-known authority on the psychology of superheroes--offers readers a wealth of insight into superheroes, drawing on the contributions of a top group of psychologists and other scholars. The book ranges widely and tackles many intriguing questions. How do comic characters and stories reflect human nature? Do super powers alone make a hero super? Are superhero stories good for us? Most contributors answer that final question in the affirmative. Psychologist Robert J. Sternberg, for instance, argues that we all can learn a lot from superheroes-and what we can learn most of all is the value of wisdom and an ethical stance toward life. On the other hand, restorative justice scholar Mikhail Lyubansky decries the fact that justice in the comic-book world is almost entirely punitive, noting extreme examples such as "Rorschach" in The Watchmen and the aptly named "The Punisher, who embrace a strict eye-for-an-eye sense of justice, delivered instantly and without mercy. In the end, the appeal of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and legions of others is simple and elemental. Superheroes provide drama, excitement, suspense, and romance and their stories showcase moral dilemmas, villains we love to hate, and protagonists who inspire us. Perhaps as important, their stories allow us to recapture periods of our childhood when our imaginations were cranked up to the maximum--when we really believed we could fly, or knock down the bad guy, or save the city from disaster.
Download or read book The Gospel According to Superheroes written by B. J. Oropeza and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2005 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: And 1970s, and the dark and violent creatures who embody the pre- and post-millennial crises of faith. Lavishly illustrated, the articles come to startling conclusions about what we have really been reading under the covers with flashlights for generations. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Download or read book What is a Superhero written by Robin S. Rosenberg PhD and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's easy to name a superhero--Superman, Batman, Thor, Spiderman, the Green Lantern, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rorschach, Wolverine--but it's not so easy to define what a superhero is. Buffy has superpowers, but she doesn't have a costume. Batman has a costume, but doesn't have superpowers. What is the role of power and superpower? And what are supervillains and why do we need them? In What is a Superhero?, psychologist Robin Rosenberg and comics scholar Peter Coogan explore this question from a variety of viewpoints, bringing together contributions from nineteen comic book experts--including both scholars in such fields as cultural studies, art, and psychology as well as leading comic book writers and editors. What emerges is a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most popular of pop-culture figures. Writer Jeph Loeb, for instance, sees the desire to make the world a better place as the driving force of the superhero. Jennifer K. Stuller argues that the female superhero inspires women to stand up, be strong, support others, and most important, to believe in themselves. More darkly, A. David Lewis sees the indestructible superhero as the ultimate embodiment of the American "denial of death," while writer Danny Fingeroth sees superheroes as embodying the best aspects of humankind, acting with a nobility of purpose that inspires us. Interestingly, Fingeroth also expands the definition of superhero so that it would include characters like John McClane of the Die Hard movies: "Once they dodge ridiculous quantities of machine gun bullets they're superheroes, cape or no cape." From summer blockbusters to best-selling graphic novels, the superhero is an integral part of our culture. What is a Superhero? not only illuminates this pop-culture figure, but also sheds much light on the fantasies and beliefs of the American people.
Download or read book Wonder Woman and the World of Myth written by Steve Korte and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2017-12-11 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mount Olympus. Pandora’s Box. Valhala. These classic locations and artifacts of mythology have captivated people for thousands of years. But did you know they also play a part in the life and adventures of Wonder Woman? Get ready to explore how Greek, Roman, Norse, and other world mythologies are woven into the fabric of the Princess of the Amazons’ backstory. The connections will surprise you!
Download or read book Marvel Myths and Legends written by James Hill and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore the fabled myths and epic legends of the vast and vibrant Marvel Universe. Visit the dawn of time to witness the birth of the Celestials and their warring creations, the Eternals and Deviants. Discover the pantheons of Thor, the Asgardians, and their Olympian rivals. Wonder at the arcane origins of Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. Behold the new and ancient gods of Wakanda and the Black Panthers. Celebrate the rise of Atlantis and its royal protector Namor, the Sub-Mariner. These are the spectacular sagas and mythic tales that define and underpin the Marvel Universe. © 2020 MARVEL
